A Healing Touch
by richardgeckcs
Summary: One-Shot set in an AU of 'Resurrection' where they decide to stay in Tondc for the night and storm Mount Weather the next day. After the shot had rang out, Clarke had instantly regretted it. She'd hurt one of her people yet again and she could feel it settling like a stone in her gut. But this time she could fix it, she could heal this wound, keep this person alive.


Guess who should be being productive and working on the next chapter of _The Princess' Guard Dog_?

Guess who had a lot of Lincoln/Clarke friendship feels during last nights episode and decided to write this one-shot instead?

This is set sort of during 'Resurrection' but strays into AU when they decide to stay in Tondc for the night to rest and prepare themselves for battle.

* * *

Clarke had instantly regretted taking the shot. Regretted the fact that she had hurt Lincoln, that she'd killed _another_ person in cold blood. She'd been regretting a lot of things lately if she was being honest with herself. Finn's death, sending Bellamy to Mount Weather...letting Tondc get devoured in flames as she and Lexa escaped without a scratch. But this regret settled in her stomach like a stone, the weight of hurting another person she'd come to care about turning her stomach as she watched the blood continue to stain the fabric of Lincoln's shirt. She knew he wouldn't say anything about the pain or the blood, no grounder would as she'd learned. Down here it was get hurt, get back up. Something completely different from the Ark. If someone so much as broke an arm you were rushed to the Medical Ward. Here you get stabbed, you keep going until it's safe enough for you to worry about the wound.

Even though he'd told her to take the shot, she still felt sorry, still apologized and still made him come to her once they were back in Tondc and she had the medical supplies needed to take care of his wound. Clarke gently touched Lincoln's unharmed shoulder and pushed him to sit on a small pile of rubble in one of the less populated areas of the wreckage. There were maybe a dozen people roaming around in this part of the wreckage, all of them simply grabbing supplies before heading back to the area that had been hit the hardest. Turning her attention back to Lincoln, she motioned for him to remose his shirt so she could fully see the wound. Despite several protests from the Grounder saying that he was fine, she still needed the affirmation. The feel of living, breathing flesh beneath her fingers to prove that she hadn't killed someone else she considered hers. That she hadn't killed the man that Octavia loved.

Lincoln shifted until he'd pulled the shirt over his head, a barely audbile hiss escaping him when the movement pulled at the wound on his shoulder. Clarke, having been close enough to hear the sound mentally cursed herself and put her hands to the skin surrounding the bullet wound. His skin was warm beneath her own chilled fingers, the heat and steady pump of his heart beneath her palm anchoring her and slowly calming her as she set to her task. Grabbing a bottle of moonshine she'd managed to snag along with her other supplies, she poured it over the wound without warning before taking a swig from the bottle herself. Putting the cork back in the bottle, she set it down beside Lincoln.

"Should you really be drinking right now?"

Clarke barely heard his words, the only thing that gave told her he had spoke was the rise and fall of his shoulder beneath her hand and the movement of his jaw in her peripheral. Snorting, she glanced at him from the corner of her eye and smiled slightly.

"No, but it certainly helps, huh? You should take a couple drinks yourself. This is gonna hurt like a bitch..."

Lincoln was the one to snort this time, mouth opening to speak but instead growling in pain when she poked the skin surrounding the entry wound.

"Is this how you treat all your people?"

He asked, taking a swig from the moonshine and relaxing his shoulder beneath Clarke's none too gentle touch. Cocking an eyebrow at the grounder, she smiled again.

"No, I'm being much nicer to you than I am to my people. They get scolded. Since it's my fault this happened..."

Clarke let her words trail off, instead focusing on cleaning her hands and his shoulder with the moonshine once more before she set to the task of wrapping his shoulder tightly. He was lucky the bullet had gone through clean or else she would've had to dig though the wound until she found the bullet. Luckily all she really needed to do was clean it and bandage it.

"I told you to, Clarke...You had to. He was killing the survivors...He would've killed Octavia..your mother...you..."

Lincoln touched the hand she was wrapping his shoulder with, giving her a look that she'd seen too many times since coming to the ground. That look of pity, of sympathy and knowing. It made her want to scream! She wanted someone to tell her that this wasn't okay! But she knew that no one that had truly experienced the ground would tell her that. They'd all give her that look and tell her that it's what needed to be done.

"I know...And I thought it would help me feel better...But it didn't...I'm just glad you're okay...I could've killed you with that shot, Lincoln."

Clarke smiled softly, touching his hand before moving it back to his side and finished applying the bandage. Once done, she took several steps back and clasped her hands in front of her to stop the shaking she could already feel start back up again. She needed to keep busy, to keep her mind off of all the things she'd done. She needed to drink and sleep and wake up tomorrow to save her people...She was pulled from her thoughts once more when she felt a hand wrap around her elbow.

"You're a good shot, Clarke...I was willing to die if that meant saving the people here. Now come on...We both know that they need all the help they can get."

Lincoln gently lead her towards the much more crowded area of the wreckage, his hand still loosely gripping her elbow in a silent show of support. The quiet, simple presence of the warrior making her think, that just for a moment... 

**_They could do this..._**


End file.
